Striving to save and stay solvent!

MeandO

I had a flurry of orders in overnight which is great, but have had to spend almost £130 in printer consumables this morning as I'm running low on two items, so, after accounting for postage of around £100 too, I'll be left with about £60 to pay off the credit card. At least I won't need to buy any more consumables for a while though, so profit from any further orders for a little while should be able to go straight towards paying the debt off.

I checked the house and money boxes within for old £1 coins this morning, thankfully (or not, depends how you look at it!) we have none. I still have an old £5 note in my purse that was given to me in change, so I will see if the bank will let me pay it into the account today, they did last time. I also need to bank the cheque today after work. Once cleared it'll be paid off the credit card.

MeandO

I nipped to Tesco at lunchtime and found lots of YS bargains for the freezer. A whole chicken, reduced to £2.07, 3 large packs of smoked haddock for £2.10 each, a takeaway indian meal box for two reduced to £3 and a large 'counter made' pizza which I'll cut up and freeze in portions for £1. I also treated work colleagues to some sweet treats and bought myself a cheap(ish) lunch today. £17 spent. Oh, and some halloween cakes for DS from greggs, £1.75 for 4.

MeandO

OH and I unexpectedly went out for food last night, only to the local pub, was a nice change and only spent around £10.

I posted the orders I'd completed and topped my post office business account up by £70, so there's around £90 on that card now. Should hopefully be around £35 left after yesterday's lot was sent; will probably need to top up by another £30-£40 next week. Allowing for that, I should have around £150 left to overpay the credit card from the business and £47 from the cheque to be banked. Think I can manage to round that up to £200 and pay a nice chunk off. :j That, along with the £20 cashback due to be paid to it within the next 7 days, will get the debt back down into the £600's (just), which is a lot better than the £900s as it stands now.

I've completed a few more surveys this morning, have a few more to do but will try and do those at lunchtime. The points in that account is building up nicely again.

MeandO

Another £5 Amazon voucher earned from surveys

MeandO

£100 paid off the credit card this morning, should be able to pay another chunk off later this week once a cheque clears and business takings have hit the bank account.

I've done a couple more surveys this morning too, I'm about halfway to another £5 voucher already. They're building up nicely at the moment.

MeandO

The £20 cashback incentive has now appeared on the credit card account, so outstanding balance is now £799.72. I should be able to pay at least another £100 off it this week. I really can't wait until it's gone and I'm debt free - obviously apart from the mortgage - which I then really need to work on paying down. I'm worried I won't be able to get a good deal once my fixed rate is up in May as I'm now working part time.

MeandO

So, erm... I just paid my credit card off... :eek::j:eek:
Other than the mortgage (and an old style student loan I'll never earn enough to pay off), I'm debt free. :j:j:j

I've been sat here thinking about money, thinking how daft I've been. I had £1400 sat in a savings account which I've been saving - £975 is for some work to be done on my bathroom, but I still don't have a date for when this is likely to be done (it's been promised for 8 months+:mad:) and the rest is to save towards house/car insurance and an emergency pot.
So, instead of having it sit there, I've paid the credit card off with it and now, instead of throwing every bit of earnings from the business at the credit card, I can now throw it at the savings.

So, with the latest bit of the business funds added, the savings now sit at £720. I will be able to pay at least another £100 over to it within the next day or two, so it will soon be on the way back up towards the £975 needed. Then I need to furiously save to cover the car & house insurance and MOT due in November/December so I don't have to resort to paying these with the credit card.

I'd like to get the savings pot up to a decent amount before overpaying the mortgage, so if I concentrate on that for the rest of 2017 and start 2018 with tackling my mortgage, I think that almost smells like a plan...

Honeysucklelou2

That's fantastic...well done:beer::j:j:j:j:T:T

It sounds like a good plan to build up the EF and start 2018 with a mortgage busting gusto!

MeandO

Thank you HSL2 xx

It's been a busy afternoon/evening since I left work. I left the office and manage to print all of my orders/invoices off before picking DS up from school. Then we had an hour or so of working on a school project that he needs for Friday and we were only told about it last night... :mad: we had to pop to home bargains after school and buy paint, glue etc for it and I picked up some other bits whilst I was there - a couple of presents, some snacks for Ds's lunchbox and such. We spent £17 but paid for it with the £50 incentive card from sky, so no money taken out of the bank.
We painted his model when we got back, read his reading book and spellings - sometimes I really do feel like it's too much sent home to do for school. We spent an hour last night making another project he needed, the same tonight and tomorrow now, plus reading books and spellings every day - he's 6 !!!!!! and I'm a single parent who effectively works two jobs! I'm very aware and encourage the importance of learning, but it is too much at times.

Anyway, once DS was fed, watered, de-painted, bathed and in bed, I started work again! Spent a few hours getting the orders made and packed but did mange to get most of it done so I am pleased. I just need to finish a few bits off tomorrow before posting it all on Thursday.

Yesterday I went to Aldi and spent £25 on a trolley full of groceries. It still amazes me how much you can get for your money there, although unfortunately the fruit and veg in my local one has gone downhill a bit so you have to check it over carefully. Again, I made use of the £50 incentive card so it didn't actually cost me anything. Between that and today's spend, there's £6.86 left on the card.

No surveys done tonight, too tired now, but I do have a few to do so will attempt those in the morning. Hopefully I will gain enough points tomorrow to cash in for the next £5 Amazon voucher, although am still waiting for delivery of the last one...

Eager_Elephant

Woohoo MeandO, you deserve some good news - being debt free is fab!!!

And as for homework, I know quite a few parents who told the primary school that their child would only do some of the homework (and some actually did none) as it was all too much.
I remember my daughter in Year 6 of primary had loads to prepare her for high school and then when she went to high school she actually got less than she had in primary.

I think 1 thing a night such as reading is fine and then bigger things like projects should span a few weekends to give people time to do it.